1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to mobile technology, and more particularly to the enforcement of an administrative policy on a mobile device.
2. Related Art
A variety of mobile devices (such as personal data assistants, or PDAs, handheld computers, cellular phones, pagers, etc.) exist. Such mobile devices include ones based on the PALM operating environment and the WINDOWS CE operating environment.
Mobile devices are being increasingly used across organizations where several employees are provided with mobile devices which enable them to communicate with their respective organizations or access sources of information.
Each user of a mobile device may have a different purpose of use or a different pattern of use relative to other users. For example, one user may need only email access while another user may need both Internet and email access. Furthermore, it may be the policy of an organization, for example, to allow employees Internet access but block them from accessing certain web sites on the Internet. Other policies may also include selective access to organizational resources or blocking users from using certain applications on their mobile devices (such as camera, BLUETOOTH, etc.) It may also be necessary to prevent users from modifying policies set by an administrator of a network even when a mobile device is offline or disconnected from the network.
Therefore, what is needed is a system, method and computer program product that enables enforcement of an administrative policy deployed by an administrator on a mobile device.